By SUE BRANDEAU
A very great measure of the charm of Bowdoinham rests in the antiques which served past generations and are still extant to grace our present day. Some, like the fine old homes, are still in use. Others, like sleighs, wagon wheels and churns, have been superseded by more modern equipment and serve only as reminders of the past way of life.
One such relic of the past is the PHENIX, a hand tub now resting in the loft of the town's fire station.
The PHENIX was commissioned into service in 1798, and is one of only two or three such hand tubs in existence in all the nation. The Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan displays one such duplicate, and the museum curators declare it priceless.
Even 104 years after the beginning of its service, the PHENIX was called into use during the disastrous fire of I902, though unsuccessful: "The old hand tub, PHENIX, was brought into commission. She had to be filled with water from buckets, and before it could be pumped out of her, the machine froze solid and the attempt had to be given up."
In 1938 and in subsequent years the PHENIX served as a charming prop for pretty girls to perch upon for picture-taking during affairs held by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Bowdoinham Firemen. And in 1962, during the Bowdoinham Bicentennial a firemen's muster was held, attended by hand tub crews and equipment from all over New England, the PHENIX held a place of honor as the oldest and most historic Fire fighting equipment present.
For the ten years past, the venerable hand tub had been rented to a group called the Oxford Bear Engine Co., a group which studies and admires old fire apparatus. The rental fee was $1.00 a year, and Bowdoinham voters have approved the lease agreement every year, believing their antique to be in safe hands. Until very recently this was true, but a short while ago Fire Chief Allan Frizzle learned that the PHENIX was being kept in an open-sided shed, and was thus being cruelly exposed to the elements. He quickly retrieved the tub, and put it in the dry fire station, where it now reposes.
But the weather had already taken its toll and some observers feel the tub is beyond recovery. Not only would restoration be expensive, but it may be hard to find a carpenter with the skill to bring the PHENIX back to its state of elderly beauty. The oak planking that forms its frame is rotted to the point of powdering in spots. The tin tank that held precious fire fighting water has separated in many places. The iron rimmed wooden wheels are detached.
So, after 175 years of service, mostly to the town of Bowdoinham, and most of it honorably, the PHENIX is faced by another challenge, no doubt the greatest challenge of her distinguished career. Will the crippled old tub rise to the occasion or will she rot into a dusty oblivion in the fire station loft?
If the PHENIX is to be helped, the time is now.
Bowdoinham Advertiser Vol II No. l c. 1974
Frank Connors, Editor
THE PHENIX, the first piece of fire apparatus owned by the town of Bowdoinham, has been bought from the Town by the Firemen's Association and is now in the garage owned by Howard Moody, President of the Association. It is being greased, painted and equipped with a new hose at the garage. The old pumper will be kept in condition to go to musters or, in a bad fire, may be used as additional apparatus. In any case, it deserves the best of treatment in its old age. The known history of this ancient pumper begins back in 1806, when a J. Carr was building a boat on Patten's shore, and needed a pumper for fire protection, and also to water his new vessel. Carr went to Boston and bought the Phenix in a junk yard. He shipped it by sailing vessel to Bowdoinham, and when he was through with it, he turned it over to the town. For some time it was the only piece of fire apparatus in Bowdoinham, and it saw considerable service.
When the old Bowdoinham hotel, the Stinson House, was burned, the Phenix saved the Sampson house next door. The Phenix was built in the days before suction hose was known, so a bucket brigade was necessary to fill its wooden reservoir with water, which was then forced out through the hose by men on the pump handles. The original hose on the pumper was made of long, straight pieces of leather, riveted to form a cylinder. Brass rivets an inch apart and brass couplings on the old hose literally proved its undoing, according to Charles H. McEwen, who was for 29 years a fire warden. The hose disappeared, probably stolen for the brass that it contained. Only the original nozzle now remains.
THE WATER WITCH, Bowdoinham's other old piece of apparatus which townspeople voted not to sell to the Association, is also unusual, there being but one other like it, the Eureka, of Arlington, Mass. The Water Witch and the Eureka were built by the old Howard & Davis company, now the Howard Clock Co., of Roxbury, the Water Witch going first to the town of Dedham, Mass., there it gained a record which will, in all probability, never be taken away from it. The record was for being hauled by hand the longest distance of any pumper when it was taken from Dedham to a fire at Newton Lower Falls.
Dedham sold the Witch to Bowdoinham, where it carried off honors for its town at muster for length of streams played, and has often proved its worth in actual use.
In the big fire of 1904, the Water Witch saved the Brick Store, now occupied by Will Rideout even after the windows and interiors were all ablaze. In 1914, when the Methodist parsonage burned, the pumper won a commendation from insurance adjustors for not only saving nearby dwellings, but for also putting out the fire in the house itself, before it could burn flat.
Editor's note: This article is copied from an undated clipping given to the Historical Society by Molly Nealey. We estimate that it was printed originally in 1938. The Phenix is now being restored by the Historical Society. FDC.
Bowdoinham Advertiser June 1982
Frank Connors, Editor